Dead Island

15Sep

Where to even start… I was very excited for this game because of the highly praised three minute trailer that was a slow mo reverse play snippet of a family fighting for its survival in their resort’s hotel room.

I went to GameStop to pick up the limited edition reserve and was excited to see what the game ended up being.

Ugh.

And that is where my disappointment started. What happened to being able to play the role of the family from the infamous trailer?

Instead they have some cheesy “rap crap” club scene that would make any 1994 West Coast rapper cringe and then you have four characters to choose from that have no real back stories to them or meaning.

Fatal flaw number one.

Then you as you play the game you’re faced with the task of repairing your weapons and losing 10% of your money every time you die. The question I have is who does all that money for repairs, etc go to? You’ll have miles and miles of apocalyptic zombie ridden areas. No humans in sight, no civilization in sight.. yet you stumble upon a repair work bench and you’re paying thousands of dollars to repair your weapons.

Really?

Just where/who is that money going to at this point of zombie death moments?

Then you have energy drinks and snacks all around the island/city/jungle… great source of nourishment! Nothing like bags of Doritos and cans of Rockstar to keep someone alive for days and days…

Also, there are no day or night cycles. You’re doing 40 plus hours of nonstop quests and side-missions, traveling all over and your character never ever sleeps and the sun never sets?

Horrible.

Let’s go back to the means of replenishing health (do not even dare to mention the craptastic “med-kits”) – why are the energy drinks and snacks/extra snacks labeled with a price when they are laying on the ground or on a the coffee table of a deserted house?

Absurd.

The game felt rush and it seems that they could have had any gamer worth his weight in Rockstar to quickly play the game and let them know the above and a lot more.

Let’s not even talk about Act II – the city area. The difficulty level goes from 2 (1 out of 10 scale) to 30 in one area alone. You’re faced with 5 zombies and then you take two steps to get bombarded with over 40 rushing zombie hordes (yes, I counted on one instant of game play in the city area outside the church).

It’s absurd considering your weapons degrade with just killing three or four zombies (and yes I had that skill maxed out). It’s absurd considering a few hits from a zombies flaying arms will knock your health down 60-80%.

I am very disappointed – the game is playable, but it could have been A WHOLE LOT better. With just minor adjustments. Going to stop writing now. I need next week’s Fallout DLC to cleanse this gamer’s palate.